Tidbits of the Day-Barcelona

Today we walked, rode buses, and took metros to our various destinations. Here are the places that outshone the rest.

• the Parc Guell, where Dad took pics of B and me with buildings growing out of our heads
• the breakfast buffet at the hotel, which included mango mousse, tasty tortilla, and—hold your applause—FLAN!
  
• a little Spanish boutique, where I finally found a top: a ruffly turquoise one to match my jeans
• the Picasso Museum, where they exhibit Picasso's interpretations of Velasquez's "Las Meninas" from the Prado - he sat for months in the Prado and did, like, 30 different Las Meninas interpretations (google it.)
  
• the seaside restaurant for lunch, where we ate delightful paellas and even more delightful tomato spread on bread
  
• the beach near Barceloneta where K took some time to frolic about
• Mom panicking as she realized the maids had taken the towels that she had carefully hijacked for our trip tomorrow to the Costa Brava
• me making 2 euros for scarfing down a NASTY black olive in, like, 4 seconds

Overall, a good day, and we head out to dinner now. Tomorrow is Costa Brava Day!!! We’re wicked psyched. Adios! xo M

Matadores 3, Toros 0

Great trip to the Plaza de Toros in Madrid, a few days after the legislature down in Catalunya voted to abolish bullfighting in a few years.

The crowd at Sunday’s corrida del toros was feisty (ie, angry). A manifesto of solidarity with Catalunyan aficionados of bullfighting was read out loud, and there was a moment of silence. But, we were most surprised by the fact that the Madrilenos view this move as a cynical, political move by the Catalunyan legislature, and not an animal rights move. In the view of the central Spaniards (based on some polls in the newspapers here), the Catalunyans actually adopted this legislation to spite the rest of Spain by abolishing a central part of Spanish culture. (The best analogy I can come up with is this - what if Ohio abolished baseball, effective 2012?).

Moreover, the bullfight fans view this as a personal liberties/personal choice issue – fans were chanting “libertad” at the bullfight Sunday night, to our surprise. Lastly, the news papers view this as a ploy to distract the public from the real problems facing Spain, like 20% unemployment.
As for the bullfight – it’s the summer, and rookie bullfighters fight in the summer, just like preseason football. The hotshots seem to be on the beach in Mallorca and points south, leaving the newbies to fight to bulls. Our bullfighters won, of course, but weren’t the most graceful or athletic doing so.

As far as I can tell, the spectrum of judging goes like this, from “worst” to best.
· Silencio
· Applauso
· Ovacion
· Forte ovacion
· Oreja (the matador gets the ear of the bull, by order of the president of the evening)

The night we were at the plaza del toros, most of the matadors got silencio because they needed more than one try to plunge the sword in. The most promising guy, who initially got the crowd roaring by kneeling as he swept his cape around, flailed at the last minute and needed 3 tries with the sword. Silencio indeed for him. Of course, silence for the bull, too, in the end.

And so, we ended our stay in Madrid – on to Barcelona….